In industrial processes and research, there is often the need to measure with a high degree of precision and accuracy very small volumes of liquid. A small volume in this context is in the range of a few microliters to a few tens of milliliters. Measurement of such small volumes is now accomplished by collecting the liquid in either a volumetric pipet or a measuring pipet. Volumetric pipets are generally used to collect and transfer an exact total volume, e.g., 25 milliliters. A type A serialized precision pipet is accurate to within about .+-.0.1 percent of the total volume for total volumes in the range 10 to 50 milliliters. Volumetric pipets are generally nonlinear as can be seen in FIG. 1. The bore of the pipet 11 is not uniform. Such a volumetric pipet 11 is calibrated in terms of the volume between scribed marks L.sub.1 and L.sub.2. Measuring pipets are used to measure volumes less than the maximum volume capacity of the pipet. The accuracy of a measuring pipet is generally between 0.5 and 1 percent of the total volume. A measuring pipet, as illustrated in FIG. 2, is linear, i.e., the volume of a column of fluid is directly proportional to its length.